FROM EAST TO WEST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 771, 10 December 1886, Page 8

FROM EAST TO WEST.

Sen Francisco News-Letter

There is a certain interesting quality in the trip across the plains no matter how frequently taken. We live in such a progressive age that each year adds some novelty to the situation, and it is amusing to look back over a number of years and observe how. the changes have mounted up. Echo Canon, on the Union Pacific road, with it layers of wonderful parti-colored rocks, like huge piles of pancakes, its walls of glittering granite, remains the same, as do also the numerous grand scenes to be met with on the Central Pacific road; but the inner man is now as tenderly cared for as is his presumably insatiable craving for scenery. To say nothing or an earlier date, fifteen years ago one 'started consistently on the journey between San Francisco and New York after the unwieldy lunch basket had compared its vacuum with your own. Butnow the eatinghouses (the Union Pacific, under the management of our old friend, Louis Eppinger) furnish the traveller with choice meals. But if the new and blooming traveller could only be taught before he starts what a respectable period of time twenty minutes are, how many subsequent weeks of dyspepsia he might save himself. As it is he bolts his dinner in five minutes and spends the remaining fifteen walking up aud down the platform wondering when the train is going •to start. Too unfrequently he refers to a vial of bi-carbonate of soda and curses the railroad authorities. At Promontory station, on the Central Pacific Bai-road, we were

made aware of another change, not in nature, but in man, nor yet in the inner man, but in the outer. It was five in the morning or thereabouts when the train passed, and turning over and peering out of the window, there on the station platform, looming out through the cold grey of the dawn, his face overspread with the grin of one who is persuading himself that, he is excited, is John W. Taylor. He was clad in corduroy, with a belt and big hat. He raised the window dx inches. ‘Hallo, John !’ we cried. He gave an Indian war-whoop and came dashing to our side, and nearly wrung off the hand extended. ‘ What on earth are you doing here at this hour of the morning ? Do you chase the golden calf at night?’ ‘Not much,’ replied John, grimly. But you see this is the only excitement of the day, and we never miss it,’ he gasped. And you get up at four every morning and ride heaven knows how many miles to see a train go by ?’ He put his head on one side, and with a look of calm content, said : ‘ Wait until you are a cow-boy, and then you’ll get up in the middle of the night and ride three hundred miles to see an emigrant waggon.’ Assenting to this statement we asked him if he had made a fortune yet. He replied that he had not, but that life was loug.and there was plenty of time. As we glided out of the station wre looked back and saw him careering wildly across the plains on a blooded mustang. At Bock Springs there was another wail from those at present condemned to earth’s outer circle. After the massacre of Chinese a year ago several hundred soldiers were sent there to keep shut the door of the empty stable, and they put in a miserable time loafing, They march down religiously to every train and curse their fate as they see it go by. The dug-outs must have filled the G.A.R. with admiration and awe. None but the enterprising Western mind would ever have conceived them. These ingenious contrivances are large holes dag out of the earth behind the house and with a roof parallel with the ground. Into them the owners fly like rats and bury themselves when they see a cyclone or feel a blizzard approaching. It must be pleasant to cower in these luxurious retreats and hear- your house go sailing across the plains, bat without doubt it w ould be less pleasant to be in the house. The phenomena of the West, however, are the cornfields, for one’s brains are enfeebled in making a mental calculation as to whether it be possible for fifty millions of people to eat all the corn produced between Omaha and Chicago in a year’s time, and if .not, whether there is a demand in all Eurbpe for the remainder. Miles and miles and miles of it, interminable prairies and- boundless plains, until you forget that landscape has any variety. One field alone was six miles long. The corncribs, with their shiny roofs and fence-like sides, extend for miles. When ready to ship to market a box-car is run up to the crib and the corn is shovelled into a hopper ; then, by machinery, it is shelled and run out through a pipe into the car, while through another tube the cobs are run up and emptied into waggon after waggon. An amusing incident had occurred about ten miles west of Omaha in one of these corn cars a few hours before we came along. There had been a smash up, and some dozen or more freight ears were completely demolished. The scene was one of wild confusion. Animals were injured, and thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of property had been annihilated in a moment. In the midst of the hubbub, hidden in the corn that filled a box car, a brakeman found a tramp. * Get out f cried the official. ‘What are' you doing here? Get out at once. ‘Well,’ said the tramp, leisurely pulling himself to his feet. * I will, but wait till I find my hat.’ At Couucil Bluffs they have one of the. finest depots on the line. From it radiates four lines of railroads to Chicago—the C. B. & Q., the G. & N. W-, the C.R.I. & Pac., and the C.M. Sc St. Paul. It is at Council Bluffs that one begins to realise that San Francisco is at the end of the world, One never hears San Francisco mentioned, and never sees it name in any of the Eastern papers that begin to pour in. Another noticeable difference after leaving Council Bluff* is in the size of the towns. On this side they are small, poverty stricken,-far apart; on the. other side they are frequent, large and flourishing, with an older civilisation.- In one thing there is no change, certainly. The Indian Reservation, occupying 6000 acres of fine and valuable laud entirely uncultivated, situated between. Tama and Long Point, on the C. & N.W.R.R., the very heart of prosperity and wealth-producing lands, suggests a problem which the Government seems in no hurry to "solve. But what it is there for the Lord and . the Government only knows, and they won’t tell. One of the things which impresses itself upon the tourist across the continent, is the difference which density of popu'ation and active competition make> in regard to the comforts of travel. Now from Council Bluffs to Chicago, there are four competing lines. Their routes, of coarse, vary widely, but their trains all start from the same point and reach the 3ome destination Within a moment or two of each other. The only opportunity, therefore, which there is for one to excel the other is in the matter of the passenger’s comfort; and this field is worked for all it is worth. Dining room cars are attached to the C. & N.W. trains, in which one can obtain for seventy-five cents meals which are quite equal to those furnished in the best hotels in the county, at double the price; and the difference between sitting down and eating leisurely in these cars, and the hurried scramble at roadside eating-houses no matter how well conducted— is too great to call for remark. On the C. & N.W., too, the train service is perfect. Each employee wears a tasteful uniform, and all seem to be thoroughly trained to the proper discharge of their duties. Their civility to passengers is perfectly remarkable. Another feature of this and other Eastern roads is the ease with which the trains start, stop and run. In starting and stopping this is particularly observable.'. There is no jolting or jerking, and passengers caa scarcely tell whether the train is in motion or not. Besides, as one gets further east, the climate changes, rainfalls are more frequent, there is little du3t, and the surrounding country has a rich, luxurious appearance. All this adds to the traveller's pleasure.